Diabetics, Iodine and Health

If you are having trouble losing weight, and keeping it off, then keep reading! The newest nutritional research is showing there’s about a 90% chance that this problem is being caused by a deficiency in an essential nutrient because there’s not enough coming from your dietary choices. What’s the needed nutrient?

Some clinicians find that up to 90% of their overweight clients (especially women) are lacking in iodine and iodide (our body needs both forms), and when the problem is corrected properly, the people lose weight and often keep it off, usually permanently.

As iodine is essential for the proper functioning of your thyroid gland, then it is logical that if you are low on iodine, your thyroid won’t function well, no matter what the (inaccurate) blood-tests “say” that its doing.

As your thyroid gland has the sole job of orchestrating your whole body’s metabolism, you won’t burn extra calories or fat properly if something in the thyroid is amok.

And, in today’s world, your thyroid is at risk.

Dr. Guy Abraham, MD one of the world’s foremost experts on iodine, says that you probably have to take 100 to 400 times the amount of iodine that is currently being recommended in the RDAs (recommended daily allowances) from the US Government scientists. But, some forms of iodine are HARMFUL. So you have to do this protocol under the watchful eye of a knowledgeable practitioner, additionally so because iodine can heal you and change your need for medications.

___ helps with fibromyalgia, by removing inflammatory bromide from your body. Bromides are regularly added to bakery products and soda pop, asthma drugs (!), and as bromine and iodine are in the same “halogen” family on the Periodic Chart of Elements, they are like Jekyll and Hyde, being able to “mess” with each other. You do not want bromine taking over receptors made for iodine. Iodine also protects against inflammatory fluorine, another halogen, rampant in its destruction of our body and readily available in our water, as fluoride. Having sufficicient iodine will pull harmful bromine and fluorine out of your body.

Iodine is needed in the thyroid, but also in the stomach, adrenals, breast, ovaries, testes (male sex glands), parotid glands (in your neck) and in your salivary glands which help pre-digest your food if you chew well (making less effort later, for your pancreas’ part in digestion).

Paleo-anthropologists studying ancient humankind know that their diet was very rich in seafood — a prime source of iodine. Ancients tribes clung to the coast and lived from ocean food for millions of years. Mountains of ancient shellfish shells are regularly found, and place-names (even tribal names) also give hints about eating and valuing seaweed, e.g. the Musqueam tribe of Vancouver, BC, a Coastal Salish Nation, take their name from “maquis”, their name for the seaweed that grows and was harvested there.

Those countries whose peoples still eat copious amounts of seafood — fish, crustaceans, seaweed — in their diets are usually the healthiest peoples and the slimmest, like the long-lived Okinawans (“Japanese”). Seaweed is the highest iodine sourced food, and you need to eat it daily. Most of it tastes delicious!

At least 90% of Americans are deficient in iodine and a McDonald’s fishwich once in a while isn’t going to be enough!

But adding kombu powder to just about everything and anything everyday, or eating sheets of crispy nori sprinkled as a garnish or just eaten for snacks etc., can start making a real difference, along with eating fish meals, almost everyday.

Dr. Abraham found that we need 50 mg a day for proper metabolic efficiency instead of only the .15mg RDA!

He uses a safe, non-radioactive, inorganic, stable form of iodine as well as a new iodide identical with Lugol solution (which has been used for 180 years, but is foul-tasting). His better-tasting iodine supplement is called Iodoral.

Be patient; it takes a long time to come up to optimal levels, and when you do, you’ll feel fantastic.

When you take the 50mg daily, iodine becomes not just a “mineral” but it importantly becomes “an adaptogen” — a substance which balances your biochemistry, intuitively, knowing just what it needs to do to get things running well.

Other well-known adaptogens include ginseng, but each works in their own way. Let’s stay with how iodine works.

Unfortunately, we are so incredibly iodine-malnourished, that for most Americans (and other first-world nations), eating whole sea salt or kelp tablets, or fish or seaweed will give you enough only if you eat proper food amounts of it every single day, as Nature intended.

And, I am NOT suggesting “iodized” salt at all as a source, because the sodium-chloride in it is creating dangerous imbalances; I never recommend regular table salt, iodized or not.

Dr. Nan Fuchs, PhD, who alerted me to the role of iodine beyond the thyroid, says that you must be tested, first, for iodine insufficiency levels using a 24-hour urine test. If your doctor won’t do it, she says to call Dr. Flechas, one of the researchers at USA 828-684-3233 and the test will cost around $75 US. Other iodine tests you may have heard about are useless; only this one works.

If you test low for iodine, then order Iodoral from Dr. Flechas and let your doctor monitor your progress, especially if you are getting better and requiring less or no medications, as you heal.

A month’s supply of Iodoral costs $27 US a month. Your physician can also get it directly from Optimox: USA 800-223-1601 and your doctor should ask for the professional packet which includes 2 hours of professional orientation.

You must stay with specific preparations as some iodine (as isotope 131) is a harmful by-product of the nuclear energy industry, and your body can absorb it too. The good iodine (isotope 127) which I am describing above in foods and in Iodoral will help block your absorption of bad iodine 131.

I’ll help you learn more next week in Part 2 and will help you source some great seaweed products then, too.

(c)2009 Em at https://diabetesdietdialogue.wordpress.com
If you want to quote from my article or use it, please write for permission at the About Me page on the upper navigation bar. Please respect my copyright. Thanks.

6 Responses

When I was a young mom, I developed fibrocystic breasts ~ 6 months after my son weaned – ‘knew’ it must be hormonal, & tried to figure out what to do on my own. At that time, Dr Jonathan Wright (www.tahoma_ clinic in WA state) was writing for Prevention mag, & had an article on just that – recommending iodine, in addition to Mag, Vit E, going light on caffine, etc.
I got a 1 oz bottle of Lugol’s (my biologist hubby did the math for the dose) & took a couple of drops – daily at first, then ~ 3x a week – & my breasts normalized within the next 2 cycles!
When my son was a teen & going thru moody stages, I brought out Dr Jarvis (‘Folk Medicine’ – Vermont country doc – who also recommended seaweed) & read ‘Iodine calms the ‘race horse type child” . . . within 2 hours of the first dose, my son’s energy normalized! Doc Jarvis likened it to changing the spark plugs in your car – the energy can fire correctly when the body has enough Iodine!

Oh, & in 1976, that first bottle of Lugol’s (1 oz) cost about $1.75! When I tried to buy a second bottle a few years later, (yes, it lasted that long – the rubber in the stopper degraded before the solution ran out!) the FDA had put it on ‘perscription only,’ & the pharmicist whom I first visited wouldn’t sell me any. The old fellow at the other Pharmacy in town was making up a bottle & I overheard the conversation with a younger Ph – the bottle came out with ‘for extrernal use only’ – he was quite grumpy about the change in the law – that bottle cost closer to $3-.
& I do eat quite a bit of seaweed – thanks for the reminder!

hi i am diabetic type2 if i put iodine on my skin it causes an adverse reaction it removes some of my skin so possibly i am alergic to this form of iodine? taking iodine orally may be a problem can you please advise me kind regards vkj321

Thanks for your question, but I am not a physician. But, you may well be able to get an answer by contacting Dr. Jeffrey Dach, MD who commented just above. He has a very detailed blog of his own. Dr. Jorge Flechas, MD mentioned in the article above, also might answer your question. Dr. David Brownstein, MD another thyroid / iodine advocate also has a website. Dr. Guy Abraham, MD is the main researcher and inventor of Iodoral and his lab, Optimox, has a website: Optimox Research Papers and Contact Info

I also think that how your skin reacts may be completely different than how you react to Iodine in food. If you read the other 4 parts of my series on Iodine (and there will be more, too), then you will see Dr. Ryan Drum, Ph D’s comment about so-called Iodine allergy and sensitivity.

He is also a medical herbalist, along with being a professor. You can also arrange to pay for a consult with Dr. Drum, along with your physician. He’s the American world-expert on the medicinal use of seaweed. Dr. Ryan Drum, PhD

Thanks for writing and I’m sure you will be able to get your question answered. Often diabetics have thin and sensitive skin, but that may not translate into a larger issue effecting your ability to use Iodine. Also, if you know that you can eat ocean fish and / or shellfish without a problem, it would seem from what I’ve read that you are unlikely to have problems eating seaweed. Check with the doctors above to learn how best to progress.

Why I Am So Passionate About This!

The prevention of type 2 diabetes, especially, is looming as one of the most pressing public health concerns of the 21st century ... with ever-increasing numbers of teens and children being diagnosed ... with two-thirds of U.S. adults now overweight or obese and, therefore, seriously at-risk.
Type 2 diabetes is mostly preventable, through education and action. So, it is outrageous that the number of people diagnosed with type 2 diabetes is rising, world-wide, and the age they are stricken with it is falling!

Email Subscription

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.